William Harold Coltman - Victoria Cross

Victoria Cross

He was 26 years old, and a lance corporal in the 1/6th Battalion, The North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's), British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place in France for which he was awarded the VC.

For most conspicuous bravery, initiative and devotion to duty. During the operations at Mannequin Hill, north-east of Sequehart, on the 3rd and 4th of Oct. 1918, L.-Corp. Coltman, a stretcher bearer, hearing that wounded had been left behind during a retirement, went forward alone in the face of fierce enfilade fire, found the casualties, dressed them and on three successive occasions, carried comrades on his back to safety, thus saving their lives. This very gallant NCO tended the wounded unceasingly for 48 hours.

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